AVG has put out great free antivirus software these past years starting when the company introduced free antivirus protection (of course it acts a lead-in for full suite protection) to the world. Let’s look into the company’s latest release, AVG Antivirus Free Edition 2012.Let’s start with overview panel, the first panel you see when you run the software. It features five protection tools in addition to three optional ones (you can activate them if you need). The main components of the software are:
Antivirus – though it is called antivirus, it does more than just that. It can detect viruses, worms, spyware, malware as well as Trojans.
Email protection – this component scans phishing attacks and spam on your emails, while Anti-Rootkit searches for low-level rootkit.
Link Scanner – protects internet browsers. It scans at the sites from search engines results. It offers protection against threats from malicious sites.
Identity protection – protects you from identity theft.
AVG Free scored 14 out 18 for AV-Test. You can say that the score is above average and it does well on Protection as well as Repair and Usability categories. AVG Free fared poorly in malicious threats removal though at 10 percent lower than the average. For Protection category it scores 4.5 out of 6 which is an above average score. Another plus is it slows down computer for only 3s, compared to 10s average across the board.
From tests conducted, 50GB files scanning took approximately 35 minutes with 178,000 files checked. When a file transfer is done during scanning, an increase of 130 percent is observed compared to during non-scanning mode.
Overall, the antivirus performs as you expect it to, with its scores are above or slightly below average in certain categories. You can say that this is a decent free antivirus software and should you need advanced level of protection, there’s always paid option from AVG.
